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Tag: kickstarter

I’m a big fan of the crew at Misfit Pictures and the last movie they made – Manufacturing Stoke. It opened my eyes to the DIY community in surfing and inspired me to get out in the ocean, and I bet it will do the same for you.

There next project is just getting started – called What the Sea Gives Me – and you have the chance to be a part of it. There is a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the movie – and get awesome goodies – but first more about the film:

– It will be a feature-lengthdocumentary comprised of intimate and candid interviews with some of the ocean’s most extraordinary ambassadors.

– We will give you an honest and personal look through the eyes of those who thrive under the most extreme water conditions, those ensuring the proper care of the oceans for future generations and those who simply derive a sense of pure joy from the sea.

– The goal is to raise ocean awareness on a global level while reminding the viewer how closely we are all connected to the sea; and, to introduce you to a unique group of people we find absolutely captivating.

A great idea from a teacher, two engineers, and a robotics specialist. Developed to use in the classroom but developing a following outside of it. The Multiplo robotics system.

It’s easy to assemble, difficult to break and simple to customize:

The concept is that you get a box that has a kit inside. We took care of all the technical details in order for each single part to be compatible. Everything you need to build a robot is inside of the box. But you can also add your own parts…

“Right out of the Box” are the words we like to use about how you should start using your Multiplo Kit. There is no need to program, study a wiring diagram or buy tools. No soldering or protoboard needed. You can build a simple robot in about 45 minutes.

We are developing a nano-satellite, and mobile apps to go with it, as the focus for a global education and public outreach campaign. The satellite, called SkyCube, is a 10x10x10 cm “1U” CubeSat intended for launch as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2013. Orbiting more than 300 miles up, on a path highly inclined to the Earth’s equator, SkyCube will pass over most of the world’s inhabited regions.

SkyCube will take low-resolution pictures of the Earth and broadcast simple messages uploaded by sponsors. After 90 days, it will use an 8-gram CO2 cartridge to inflate a 10-foot (3-meter) diameter balloon coated with highly reflective titanium dioxide powder. SkyCube’s balloon will make the satellite as bright as the Hubble Space Telescope or a first-magnitude star. You’ll be able to see it with your own eyes, sailing across the sky. But SkyCube’s balloon isn’t just for visibility. It will – within 3 weeks – bring SkyCube down from orbit due to atmospheric drag, ending the mission cleanly in a fiery “grand finale” that avoids any buildup of space debris.

PLEDGES

$1 – Sponsors 10 seconds of the mission. You can broadcast one (1) 120-character message from the satellite.

$6 – Sponsors 1 minute of the mission. You can broadcast six (6) 120-character messages from space, and request one (1) image from the satellite.

$100 – Sponsors 15 minutes of the mission. An ideal family pack – we’ll send you two (2) SkyCube mission T-shirts! And you can broadcast one hundred (100) 120-character messages from the satellite, and request twenty (20) images from the satellite at any time during the mission.

$1,000 – Sponsors 2 hours of the mission – a great high school or university classroom sponsorship package. We’ll send you a radio receiver which you can use to detect transmissions from SkyCube and other satellites already in orbit! You’ll also get a flying SpaceX Falcon 9 model rocket, and twenty (20) SkyCube mission T-shirts. You can broadcast one thousand (1000) 120-character messages from space, and request up to two hundred (200) images from the satellite.

My project is all about environmental and community responsibility. I’m a custom surfboard builder that wants to help make a change in our toxic industry while also taking action to help protect a rare California coastal habitat.

The technologies required to make a better surfboard are no longer experimental, they’re high quality and available for those willing the invest the time and money necessary. The funding of this campaign will allow me to use plant-sap based resins and recycled foam products to build a collection of beautiful surfboards.

Once my work is finished I’m going to hold an art show/silent auction and donate the profit from the line’s sales to the Save Naples Coalition, a small group of people helping to protect the Gaviota coast from major development.

Larger scale change is always spurred on by grass roots efforts that raise consumers’ expectations. I want to be part of the challenge and help change the demands that customers put on our industry.

Six families of makers from the Bay Area are working on building a fully-operational motion controlled flight simulator based on the fighter ship from Battlestar Galactica.

Using the fuselage of a small plane, the team has already built a motion platform that rotates a full dizzying 360 degrees in both the pitch and roll axes. They’re still a ways away from finishing the project, including furnishing the interior of the cockpit to look like the ship from the show, and programming the open source flight simulator software to work with their rig.

You can learn more about all this by visiting the project home, The Viper, or through the Kickstarter fundraising project. Oh, and check out my favorite part of the whole thing, the test model built using legos…I would love to see NASA doing that 🙂

Yesterday, I wrote about the need for women writers and artists in comic books, highlighting a very successful Kickstarter project, Womanthology. The project was so successful that they have an offshoot. A documentary about female super heroes that premiered at South by Southwest 2012:

Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines traces the fascinating evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman. From the birth of the comic book superheroine in the 1940s, to the blockbusters of today, WONDER WOMEN! looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation.

The film introduces audiences to a cast of fictional and real life superheroines fighting for positive role models for girls, both on screen and off, and reminds us of our common human need for stories that tell us we can all be heroes.

I read a lot of comics and it is always upsetting that there are no women creating them. There are female characters everywhere in the stories, many super heroines, and yet, nearly all the top female characters have all-male teams working on them.

It is pretty sad, and unfair.

The good news is that a few projects rumbling around are experiencing awesome success. The following Kickstarter project, one of the most successful on the site, covers this exact topic:

Womanthology is a large scale anthology comic showcasing the works of women in comics. It is created entirely by over 140 women of all experience levels, including top industry professionals.

The purpose of the book is to show support for female creators in comics and media. There will be multiple short stories, “how to” & interviews with professionals, and features showcasing iconic female comic creators that have passed, such as Nell Brinkley and Tarpe Mills. A Kids & Teens section will also be included, showcasing their work, and offering tips & tricks to help them prepare themselves for their future careers in comics.

Overall, this is pretty much a huge book showcasing what women in comics have accomplished, and what we are capable of 🙂 We are also hoping that by doing this book, it will encourage a new generation of women to pick up the pencil and create!

We want to transform an abandoned trolley terminal on the Lower East Side of Manhattan into the world’s first underground park, called Lowline.

This space is quite large, by New York standards: 60,000 square feet, or 1.5 acres. It was built in 1903 as a trolley terminal, for streetcars traveling over the Williamsburg Bridge, and has been out of operation since 1948. We fell in love with the site because of its architectural details: old cobblestones, crisscrossing rail tracks, vaulted 20-foot ceilings, and strong steel columns.

To build this park, we’re planning to use a cutting-edge version of existing technology– which we’ve already built in prototype. It uses a system of optics to gather sunlight, concentrate it, and reflect it below ground, where it is dispersed by a solar distributor dish embedded in the ceiling. The light irrigated underground will carry the necessary wavelengths to support photosynthesis– meaning we can grow plants, trees, and grasses underground. The cables block harmful UV rays that cause sunburn, so you can leave the SPF-45 at home. Sunglasses optional (for cool kids).

We think a year-round public space will be valuable for everyone. Farmers markets and vendor stands can feature fresh produce and locally made goods, supporting local and sustainable businesses. Art installations, concerts, and performances can help showcase the incredible creative spirit of the Lower East Side. Youth programming and educational opportunities can offer rich experiences for kids and parents. And a safe haven from the hectic feel of Delancey Street will serve as relief in a very car-centric corner of Manhattan.

When it’s really cold, or pouring rain, how much fun is it to hang out in Central Park? The High Line? Not so much. The LowLine can be the 21st century answer to traditional parks: instead of building up, let’s build down!

A behind the scenes look at the tiny, passionate teams of imaginative programmers and level designers who spend years and thousands of dollars slaving away towards realizing lifelong dreams of sharing their creative vision.

The documentary follows two different game developers building games for the X-Box Live Arcade. One is called Super Meat Boy, the other is called Fez.

Now these aren’t the thousands strong teams that bring us games like Call of Duty or Fallout 3, these are young dudes who have a passion for gaming. Both teams consist of 2-3 people doing all the coding, designing, business end stuff, organizing, beta testing and distributing of their work.

The Super Meat Boy guys (Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes) are the upstarts, bright-eyed young men bound and determined to wow the world with their concept

The makers of Fez are more the rock stars (Phil Fish) who made a big splash at a gaming con when they announced the game. They won awards, garnered huge praise from the gaming press and then disappeared.

They also give us a brief history of indie gaming, underlining the huge boom thanks to X-Box Live Arcade, tablets and smart phones.

On Monday, Kickstarter saw the third project in its short history, a Web comic book, raise over $1 million.

Before that, the first two projects to cross the million dollar mark — a computer adventure game and a fetching American-made iPhone dock — did so just days prior, on February 10, and both within 24 hours of each other.

The Million Dollar Projects

Order of the Stick – the web-comic author asked his fans to pre-order printed editions of back issues. Every pledge gets a copy of the book and higher pledges get extra goodies.

Currently raised – $1.25 million

Double Fine Adventure – game designers at Double Fine Productions asked fans to finance a new computer game and make a behind-the-scenes documentary about the process. The campaign started with a video (below) that is really, really entertaining. Each pledge receives a copy of the game, access to members-only forum, more fun videos, and higher pledges get even more exclusive content.

Currently raised – $2.09 million

Elevation Dock: the best dock for iPhone – Casey Hopkins wants to create a CNC machined (i.e. precision computer manufacturing) iPhone dock that is made-in-America, looks spectacular, and solves all the problems of docking. He presents a video to explain it all. The minimum pledge is $59 and gets you the dock (retail price will $99) and higher pledges receive extra goodies.